With CMS intensifying its oversight on hospice and home health organizations, adapting to a proactive compliance posture is essential. There are no more prior notification of surveys, no more block out days, CMS will take over validation surveys by sending in a CMS contracted agent with the Accrediting Organization simultaneously to co-conduct the survey, and state complaint surveys may turn into full validation surveys. The only way to be ready for surprise surveys is to stay survey ready at all times. This blog series lays out the Five Most Important Steps to achieve Perpetual Survey Readiness.
Step 4: Centralize and Standardize Your Program Data and Plans
Ever struggle to find that one important binder when a surveyor shows up? Or waste time trying to locate the correct folder on SharePoint or Google Drive with your audit or compliance data? Or both?
When your critical program data, plans, and reports are de-centralized or on a shared drive in multiple folders and subfolders, you run the risk of not being able to access them during a survey, and more importantly, they are not easily accessible to your clinicians to ensure they are aligned with your goals. Even Google Drives and SharePoint are commonly inaccessible to field staff.
For larger, multi-location organizations, the impact is even greater when programs cannot be accessed just as easily locally and by the quality leadership team at headquarters. For large, multi-site organizations, a lack of centralization of quality and compliance resources can lead to non-standard templates for plans, audits, reports, and performance improvements.
Lack of standardization causes unnecessary and wasted time trying to accumulate data and compare branch locations on an apples-to-apples basis. For these multi-site organizations, standardizing programs, data collection and reporting, plans, and PIPs is a must to ensure the highest quality and performance at each location and to be aware of each branch location’s survey readiness without having to be on-site.
More and more hospice and home health organizations are embracing a more centralized approach to storing and managing their quality and compliance program data.
Is your organization's program centralized and standardized?
First, audit your program. Ask yourself and your team:
Your answers to these questions will inform your next steps. Implement these strategies to centralize and standardize your administrative programs such as QAPI, emergency management, infection control, medication management, and for hospice your bereavement and volunteer programs.
5 Strategies for Centralizing and Standardizing Your Programs
Centralize and Standardize with QAPIplus
QAPIplus helps by organizing all program data, plans, reports, and audits for QAPI, emergency management, infection control, medication management, governing body meetings, and for hospice – volunteer and bereavement – all in one place. QAPIplus enables access to field staff through its mobile app. During a survey, all data can be accessed remotely by your shared services or headquarters team.
For multi-location, QAPIplus enables you to standardize plans, reports, and audit tools to make it easier for quality leaders to monitor programs and ensure you are comparing your branch locations apples-to-apples.
To learn more about how QAPIplus can help your organization centralize and standardize your administrative programs - QAPI, emergency management, infection control, medication management and more, request a demo today.
Read more blog posts about survey readiness, quality, and compliance management.